Shabbat and the Road to Ramallah

May 17th, 2008 Citadel Youth Hostel, Jerusalem, Israel
(Note: I made a small change, and now anyone can comment on the blog whether or not you are a registered user, so feel free to drop a line! Also, the pictures were not working so I hope to load some on tomorrow)
I was wrong about having only one roommate. Soon after I stopped writing we met Johnny, a 19-year-old, golden-haired Londoner. Before starting at Cambridge in October, he’s been traveling throughout the Middle East, going first to Syria, then Jordan, Egypt, and now Israel. Starting on July 4th he will be working at a school in Tanzania. We liked this guy immediately. We stood around talking for a long time, swapping crazy travel stories and making a few plans for the next day. He might even visit us in Ramallah.
The call to morning prayer failed to wake any of us up. Our extensive walking the day before had exhausted us. We started stirring around 7:30, and I washed my face and made a cup of tea. Adam and I combined some of our food with Johnny’s for a modest breakfast of Peter Pan peanut butter, Nutella chocolate spread, and a loaf of bread. Once Sean dragged his lazy butt out of bed, we made our way to the Dome of the Rock. We passed quickly through security at the Western Wall, which was filled with the prayers of Shabbat. Unfortunately, we found that the Dome is closed on Saturdays. We were told we could try again early tomorrow morning. Johnny had only been in Jerusalem for a day, so he had seen very little of anything. We didn’t mind revisiting a few places, so we all journeyed to the Holy Sepulchre.
The church was much more crowded this time. Several priests, dressed in red robes collared with white, conducted a ritual service upstairs at the supposed site of the Crucifixion. An enormous line circled the shrine over the tomb, which was guarded by a priest who accompanied those who went inside. We left before being trampled.
The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer is directly out of the archway which leads to the square in front of the Sepulchre. We ventured inside, paying 5 shekels to climb up its tall white tower. Young by the standards of basically everything else in the city, the church was built in 1898 over the remains of the 11th century church of St. Mary la Latine. We barely squeezed through the coiling staircase, popping out in a four-walled room, each with a door leading to a small balcony overlooking the Old City. Every new viewpoint of this place is exciting.
We split up for a little while, Sean and Adam trudging off together and Johnny and I leaving to wander through the large cobbled streets. Just off David Street, a man stopped us, telling us we were now exactly in the center of Jerusalem, where the four quarters of the Old City (Jewish, Muslim, Armenian, and Christian) met. He told us that there was a great view up a staircase behind us. This same guy stopped my grandparents and me two years ago as we walked together on this same street. Johnny and I hopped up for a few minutes, taking a quick peek at the layers of rooftops before coming back down. Surprisingly, he didn’t ask us to buy anything, but he simply asked our nationalities. When I told him I was from Tennessee in the U.S., he smiled.
“Ah, Memphis!” he cried.
“No, Memphis is way over in the west,” I told him. “I’m from the other side.”
“I have been to Graceland,” he countered proudly. “Elvis! I bought his license there. It is in my shop. You can come and see!”
His clever move to encourage us to enter (and by something from) his shop didn’t work. We said we had to move on and walked briskly forward.
A little ways down the street, we noticed a man rushing into a synagogue on our left. We quietly stepped into the little courtyard and tiptoed up the stairs leading into the synagogue. A woman stood at the door. We asked if we could come in and look; she asked if we had anything to cover our heads. We didn’t.
“It’s all right, we don’t have to go in,” Johnny told her. “We’re not Jewish.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “In that case you can definitely come in without a kappa!”
She pulled the head rabbit close to her, asking him, and he motioned enthusiastically for us to enter. Several groups of men were clustered in the room, gathered around books which they read and discussed fervently. The women sat behind us through a grated wall. The lady told us that this is one of the oldest synagogues in Jerusalem. We didn’t want to overstay our welcome, so we wished them “Shabbat Shalom” and left. We went out the Zion Gate, following the road for awhile before heading to the Western Wall near the Dung Gate. Sean and Adam were waiting for us. We were supposed to meet Heidi and Kiran at 11, but they were rather late in appearing. The night before, they told us that they had once accompanied a Jewish family to their home for the Shabbat meal. After a lot of looking around, we were invited by the same rabbi with whom they joined before. We followed a long processional, singing loudly, through the streets of the Muslim Quarter and out through the Damascus Gate. Sean disappeared, which was what I wanted to do. I think he realized we were in for a long trip.
We walked past the Garden Tomb, turning right and then we walked and walked and walked . . . and walked. Eventually, we came to a home in an apartment complex. The walls of the room into which we entered were completely covered with books, all of which (I was told), the rabbi had read. Numerous fold-out tables made it very difficult to maneuver. At least fifty people were soon seated. A large man sat at the head table next to the rabbi. His long salt-and-pepper beard, tangled at the end in sweat, covered a beaming red face. In a loud raspy voice he started bellowing Beatles’ songs, nodding and smiling at us as he sang. For some reason, he reminded me of the Ghost of Christmas Present.
A lot of the people sitting with us were young Jewish Americans who were studying at universities in Israel.

(written May 18th, 2008 St. Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem, Israel)
An assortment of drinks sat on the table. Several platters were handed through the room and we plucked bits of food off the trays as they passed. The host, Mordecai, spoke often, standing and sharing lessons from Torah or the Talmud. He spoke in English most of the time, and did so with a slight New York accent. I appreciated some of the things he said, such as the need to look out for one’s brother and to share the shalom experienced on Shabbat. However, he made extremely nationalistic comments which, in that setting, are not uncommon but are rather disconcerting to me. I certainly do not feel the same way about my country that he does about his. He expressed the need for all Israel’s enemies to change their actions and help the Jews, who are blessed, with whatever they needed. I kept thinking of the passage in Genesis where God tells Avraham that he and his descendents are blessed so that they will be a blessing to others. In spite of such comments, eating the second meal of Shabbat with Jewish friends was an enjoyable experience.
We left at an appropriate pausing point, hustling back to the Garden Tomb before it closed. Johnny had not gone in yet, so we told Kiran and Heidi that we would see them later that night and then sped off. Like the Holy Sepulchre, the tomb was much more crowded than before. Still, the garden is a tranquil place in the midst of the noise and bustle of Jerusalem. The three of us returned to the hostel, checking to see if Sean had come back. When we saw that he was still gone, we left to hike up the Mount of Olives for the third time in as many days. The sun would be setting soon so we hurried, making it from our hostel to the summit of the mount in thirty-five minutes (which, in case you aren’t aware, is pretty fast), quoting Rowan Atkinson’s comedy sketches as we went. We arrived with time to spare, so we went to the back of the Seven Arches Hotel, which is directly behind the lookout point of the mount.

(Ramallah, the West Bank)
The Judean wilderness stretched away from us in pallid hills. Bethlehem sat beneath us, partially enclosed by the Separation Wall, which some strangely refer to as the “security fence.” If so, this is the tallest, largest, and most abrasive fence I have ever seen.
The sun went down behind the old city in a deep orange. Sean, Johnny, and I sat in a miniature amphitheatre while the sun disappeared and the city’s diminutive specks of light began to appear. We walked comfortably down to the Dung Gate under a darkening bluish-gray sky. The lit-up Western Wall still echoed with Shabbat blessings as we strode toward the hostel. We made a pit-stop for schwarma, but grabbed mine and left in a rush. My dad ordered a phone for the three of us to use while here so that we could contact people from the relief society and so people at home could reach us. I had called Kirsty Sutherland (our friend and main contact in the organization) in order to discuss our arrival in Ramallah the next day, but the phone died. I left Adam and Johnny eating schwarma and hurried back to the hostel. Kirsty returned the call later that evening and we set up a time to meet the next day in order to go to Ramallah.
Sean and I sat on the second level visiting with Faydi (or Freddie to those who didn’t listen well the first time). Growing up, he had lived for some time in Ramallah and he now worked there in the mornings doing computer software repair. We told him of our plans for the next two months.
“You guys give me a call if you need anything,” he said. “Do you already have a place to stay?”
We discussed some of the recent history of Jerusalem, such as the separation of the city prior to 1967 when it was controlled by Jordan. Ahmed from Egypt, his long thick hair pulled back into a shaggy pony-tail, joined us for the conversation as we talked about the activities involved with Ramadan. He had arrived only a few hours earlier, spending the next several months working at Hebrew University doing research with Parkinson’s disease patients. He now lives in New York and earned his PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Arizona. Sean and Ahmed left to find food and only after they had been gone for some time did I decide to join them. Faydi said they went toward the Damascus Gate, so I ran through the deserted streets to find them. The Old City is desolate at night. During the day, the streets, narrowed by the overflowing products of the burrowed shops, are vibrant and filled with the noises of thudding footsteps and shouting. But at night, the streets grew wider and emptier and a thin stream of water slowly filtered through the notched stone floor. I came to the Damascus Gate, but the South Carolinian and the Egyptian were nowhere to be seen. I returned to the hostel by way of the New Gate, which is just up the street, taking my time and enjoying the streets of Jerusalem all to myself.
We awoke at 7:30 Sunday morning, quickly gathering a few things and rushing off to the Dome of the Rock. Another Brit named Steve joined the four of us. The line was already lengthy by the time we arrived. Somehow, Johnny and Steve got separated from us and we didn’t see them again all day. We left a note on Johnny’s pack at the hostel before we left, saying goodbye.
Sean almost didn’t make it to the top. The entrance to the former Temple Mount is next to the Dung Gate entrance of the Western Wall. We had to pass through a small security station and Sean was told by one of the soldiers that he couldn’t take the computer that was in his bag. He was going to have to leave because he had no other place to leave it. As Adam and I walked up the ramp, Sean suddenly stood beside us.
“They just stopped paying attention,” he said. “They didn’t seem to care about me too much, so I just came on in.”
Walking across the stones of Mt. Moriah sends slight chills through me. This place is one of the “holiest” sites in the world and is at the center of so much deep-seeded conflict. According to Jewish lore, God made humanity from dirt scooped from this mount. Muhammad is believed to have leapt to heaven in order to converse with Allah from this same rock. Adam, Noah, and Abraham all supposedly made sacrifices at its summit, including the time when Abraham almost offered his son Isaac. The Al-Aqsa mosque gave way to a wide courtyard which ascended in a row of steps beneath connecting arches. The Dome of the Rock peered through the openings. The intricate Arabic script ornamented the blues, greens, and yellows of the structure’s walls. Built between 688 and 691, its impressive gold dome was actually removed and melted in order to pay off debts. Anodised aluminium now doubles remarkably well for the material which once represented the light of Islam.
We walked all the way around it before climbing a wall on the edge of the mount in the direction of the Garden of Gethsemane. We learned we weren’t supposed to be up there, so we got down and walked a few minutes more before leaving.
We had originally planned on attending a service at the Garden Tomb, but meetings are no longer held on Sunday mornings. We were told of a Church of Scotland down the street from Jaffa Gate. We began another long walk to the left outside the gate, which led down a steep hill and rose to a steep hill. St. Andrew’s Scots Memorial Church was situated at the top. The minister warmly greeted us inside the simple sanctuary. He was slightly bent with age and his eyebrows were tufted like Gandalf’s in The Hobbit. The service was fairly short, consisting of several songs and Scripture readings, and a sermon on the Trinity by the minister, Colin Anderson. After the service, we went down to the guesthouse where some refreshments were provided. We visited a little with members of a Canadian group that was visiting and then we chatted with Mr. Anderson. He was a very kind, jovial man from Glasgow who has been working at the church since February and will be doing so for several more months. He was very supportive of the work we would be doing this summer and he expressed the need to work for peace and equity. He gave us his number and told us to come and visit and tell him about our work when we came back to Jerusalem. He took us up to the roof of the guesthouse and showed us the view of the Old City from the south. We said our goodbyes to Mr. Anderson a little later. The three of us agreed that this was the best experience at a religious setting by far. Everyone was incredibly hospitable and friendly, making an effort to come and speak to us. We sat in the library for close to two hours, reading and relaxing.
We returned to the hostel and began packing our bags. Kiran and Heidi were sitting on the roof and we took a picture with them and hugged them goodbye. We sat in front of the Damascus Gate for over an hour, watching the people. At 4:30 we went to meet Kirsty at the bus station across from the Garden Tomb. Kirsty arrived several minutes later. A short, slim, Scottish woman, Kirsty is the Media and Advocacy Officer of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society. She had been in Jerusalem for the day on a tour to see destroyed villages. We boarded Bus Number 18 and began our journey to Ramallah.
Kirsty explained a few things about our jobs, but decided to save most of it for tomorrow. She pointed out a tram that is being built to connect Jerusalem to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. This tram will penetrate Palestinian neighborhoods, but will not stop in them, only serving Israelis. We remained in Jerusalem even after we drove alongside the Wall. Suddenly, Kirsty announced that Jerusalem had ended and Ramallah had begun. We exited the bus onto the crowded streets, closely following Kirsty. We passed the city’s center, marked by five roads meeting at a monument edged by five sculpted lions, representing the founding families of the city. We hailed a taxi around the corner and drove a few streets over to our apartment. Two flights of stairs led us to our suite. The three of us were immensely impressed by the spaciousness of the place. A large window framing a portion of the city backed a small living area. The large kitchen was connected to the little balcony where we could eat and drink or hang laundry. One of the bathrooms had a washing machine. Kirsty was surprised by our enthusiasm.
“It’s rather a dump right now, really,” she said.
“Oh, anything is fine with us,” I told her. “Four bedrooms and three bathrooms is a lot for us. We’re university students.”
“Yeah, we usually live in boxes,” Sean added.
We thanked Kirsty for her help and agreed to meet with her at the Palestine Monitor at 10:30 tomorrow morning. After she left, we took a few moments to take in the place. Sean almost hopped around, extremely excited about finally being in Ramallah. We sat in the living room and attempted to learn to count to ten in Arabic, sounding absolutely ridiculous as we did so.
Right now we have one roommate: a German girl named Maxi. She wasn’t there when we arrived. We waited for her for awhile, but when we she didn’t come we decided to go explore a little bit. We found a grocery store at the corner of our street and a bakery a short distance in the other direction. We visited with a few kids who tried to learn our names and welcome us to the city. We brought back the food we bought to the apartment and made a decent meal out of pita, hummus, juice, and several meat and cheese pockets from the bakery.
The city is fairly quiet now. A few cars are humming as they speed through the street. Sean went to bed and Adam is asleep on the couch across from me. Maxi still hasn’t come.
New and different adventures await us tomorrow. We are now in Ramallah.